"A" INDIAN
cution, and went on climbing down even when he
saw my gun again.
It was not a pleasant business. When he was dead
I saw his little black hands clench and relax for the
last time. Perhaps he was not very human; but I
believe he had a sense of sin, a deliberate desire to
tease and nag; that was what made him so foul
before and so pathetic afterwards: and what else
has man invented but a sense of sin?
When I got to College I had to deal with the
Hindu kitchens. The inspection of a Hindu cook-
house is a very tricky business, and it behoves me
to record exactly my procedure.
At a quarter to eleven I got hold of the Vice-
Principal, whose caste I have never discovered but
who is, I fancy, a lax Hindu, and together we walked
across the grounds and into the courtyard of the
kitchen. In each of the divisions upon either side
the Hindu servants of the appropriate caste were
squatting indolently, it being apparently too early
to begin preparing the midday meal.
The central courtyard runs east and west, and
it being before noon and I having entered the court-
yard from the west, I was walking into the morning
sun, and my shadow, short enough anyway, was
tidily behind me, not straying about into the eating